Adhesive articles incorporating pressure-sensitive adhesives are well known and commercially available. Examples of adhesive articles are medical dressings such as adhesive bandages, transdermal drug patches and surgical patches.
Although such adhesives immediately adhere to a surface when pressure is applied, their removal from the surface becomes a hurdle later. For example, a bandage manufactured by using a pressure-sensitive adhesive can easily be applied to a wound formed on a skin with high adherence. However, when this bandage is to be removed from the skin to replace it with another bandage or after completion of treatment of the wound, a force needs to be applied to counteract high adherence of the bandage, which may cause pain to the patient and/or damage to the wound or to the healthy tissue surrounding the wound. Such hurdles are very frequently encountered during interventions to wounds by trained personnel at medical institutions as well as individuals at home.
Furthermore, commercially available adhesive articles applied to fragile skins, such as those of newborn and geriatric populations, may not have adequate adhesion, may be easily displaced or inadvertently removed. Or, after such adhesive articles are applied, their removal may be difficult which may sometimes damage the underlying tissues. They may also not work well in humid environments.
Adhesive articles comprising thermally reversible adhesives have been disclosed, for example, in: Zhang et al. “Reversible Adhesives,” U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0109035; Chen et al. “Preparation of Easily Stripped off Temporary Wound Dressing Materials by Radiation Grafting; Kubota “Wound Dressing”, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2002/0028232. The entire content of these publications is incorporated herein by reference.